Saturday, September 24, 2016

Marengo Cave Indiana, and achieving a goal

One place on our "must go to" list was Springfield Illinois, to see the Lincoln Museum and other Lincoln attractions. The distance between Lexington and Springfield (over 400 miles) was more than we wanted to travel in a day. So we planned to drive as far as comfortable, and find a park to stop at. Knowing we had some time to spare, we looked for something to see along the way. Craig found information about Marengo Cave National Landmark, which is in Southern Indiana, and a phone call verified we could park the Alfa in their lot while touring the cave.

After the cave we drove on and camped in Illinois, South of Springfield
*correction, it is Marengo Cave, not Morengo Cave


The cave was a comfortable 52°.























One of the things I enjoyed about this cave was the soft white light. Some caves use colored lights which are pretty, but unnecessary in my mind. 


Every formation is different. 


This must have been a very leaky crack at one time. 


The lower half of this image is a reflection in a still water pool, of the wall and ceiling above it. The pool looks like it is very deep, but it is actually only a few inches deep. 

After our cave tour, we continued on our way and made it well into Illinois before stopping for the night at Eldon Hazlet SRA. We were able to get a drive-through spot so we were spared the work of unhooking the Jeep, and were able to just drive on out, the next morning. (After unplugging the power cord!) 

The rest of our drive up to Lincoln's New Salem Historic Site, north of Springfield, only took a few hours.


When we started this adventure, our daughter gave us a USA sticker map to put on the outside of the Alfa.  It seemed rather daunting to think we could ever go to all 48 contiguous states, but we have. 



Illinois was our last one.



Craig had the honor of sticking it on.


Next year we hope to go to Alaska. We may visit Hawaii sometime, but without the Alfa. 
So many wonderful memories.  
So many more to make.

10 comments:

  1. Love doing cave tours and we have done a few, not that one though.
    We hope to someday do all the states as well

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  2. I have loved sharing your journey with you from back when the RV was just a dream and you had all that work to do on the house. I started reading back when you were doing the animal heads. Thanks for taking us all along with you on your journey. I'm enjoying it. June

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    1. Glad to see a moment from you. We still have lots of neat places to go to, hope you "come along."

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  3. It must have been with extreme pleasure that you stuck on the last sticker - what a journey I have been privleged to travel with you. Through you I've seen things that I want to see for myself, and a few that I'm happy to see them in your eyes (caves being one of those things!). I think you need another map for the second go-around.

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    1. I've been thinking about getting some stars or something to put on the states as we repeat them. I want to pick up Canada next time we go to a Camping World if they have one.

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  4. Congratulations to a wonderful young-at-heart couple. So glad to have had the pleasure of meeting you!

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  5. Wow, you made it to all those states. Being from Chicago, I have been to Springfield many times. Don't forget to rub Lincolns nose :).

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  6. Congrats on covering all 48 states. Love your blog and really enjoy learning from y'all..

    Thanks Again,
    Keith Landers
    www.mhrig.com

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    Replies
    1. We seem to be learning more now than we did in school. Better this way! Keeps our minds young.

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  7. It's been awhile since I have looked at your site to see how you guys are doing. I have been following your site before you became fulltimers. The way you report your feelings in the blog is heartwarming. Pretty amazing what you have done the last few years. This was a pretty neat way to celebrate filling in the map and blogging about it. You guys are great!

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